Heating and Cooling in the Translucent Interstellar Medium: Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in High Galactic Latitude Clouds

Details Heating and Cooling in the Translucent Interstellar Medium: Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in High Galactic Latitude Clouds Heating and Cooling in the Translucent Interstellar Medium: Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in High Galactic Latitude Clouds

Jun 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005sptz.prop20093i&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #20093

Computer Science

Scientific paper

We propose to use Spitzer to make the first systematic study of the emission from unidentified infrared bands (UIBs) and [C II] in translucent clouds to provide the missing key empirical information needed to understand the energetics of translucent gas in the Milky Way. Current consensus ascribes the UIB emission features at 3.3, 6.2, 7.7, 8.6, 11.3, and 12.7 microns to result from fluorescent emission by PAH molecules excited by local FUV photons. If the UIBs are indeed caused by PAHs, then their observation in high--latitude clouds, coupled with existing measurements of [C II] and FIR emission will allow us to make the first direct assessment of the relative importance of heating by both large and small (PAH) grains. The sensitivity required to detect the UIBs in translucent HLCs cannot be achieved with ground based assets on a reasonable timescale, thus we wish to exploit the unprecedented sensitivity offered by the InfraRed Spectrograph (IRS) to measure the 5--15 micron UIB features in translucent clouds. To study the heating of HLCs systematically over a wide range of translucent cloud conditions, we are proposing to observe 11 positions out of 101 detected [C II] lines of sight in 4 HLCs. Our survey can be accomplished using 11 unconstrained (i.e., independently scheduled) AORs, each taking less than 1.5 hr.

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